Taken
by 90abyss
Summary: After the events of the last inception job, Cobb has given up on that life. He is now living a normal life, doing an ordinary 9 to 5 job, and raising his kids Philippa and James. One day as he comes home from work, he finds his father-in-law in deep coma owing to injuries and his kids missing. Now, Cobb assembles his gang to find his missing kids. And his key? His father in law.
1. Chapter 1

It had been 15 months since Cobb had returned back to America after finishing the inception job for a Japanese billionaire Saito. Watching his kids Philippa and James grow and experience their lives was everything Cobb had wanted. And he had it now.

Being an extractor was a very thrilling job and Cobb was really good at it. But it had to stop someday. One failed mission meant he would again have to pack bags and disappear to another country and lay low for a while before making any attempts to get in touch with his children. This job came with a lot of sacrifices. And the amount of enemies one could make just by hijacking their dreams were insurmountable. So one fine day, after his father-in-law Professor Miles' insistence, he quit.

Now Cobb was living a normal 9 to 5 life. Waking up at 7 am, fixing breakfast, dropping kids at school, going to work, coming back home, playing with children, making dinner, and finally sleeping at 12 am. Interesting, right? Not really. But this was enough for Cobb.

His days of adventure were behind him. Maybe he would pick it up again but only after his kids turn 18 and are off to college somewhere. Until then, he had to learn to embrace his new, albeit boring, life.

He was still in touch with his old gang. Recently he had flown to Honolulu to attend Arthur and Ariadne's wedding. He was so involved in his personal hell that he didn't even notice something was brewing between those two. But he was very happy that they could find love after a shared deeply emotional experience 18 months ago. He still would get chills even thinking about how they pulled off that inception job. And because of that he was thankful everyday to be close to his children.

This was the new Cobb. He no longer had dreams about the night Mal killed herself by jumping off that hotel balcony years ago. He now stayed away from anything bordering dangerous. He worked as a System Analyst and it was as boring as it sounded but that's fine. He got to see Philippa and James everyday. He was living the life.

One day as he was returning home from work, he came across a Nintendo shop selling their new gaming console. Knowing how badly both Philippa and James wanted it, he stepped inside and bought one to surprise them. He had a good year at work and had received a good bonus so might as well spend it on frivolous things and make his kids happy while he could.

With Nintendo Switch in his one hand and a laptop bag in another, he rushed to his house. Just imagining the smiles on their faces made Cobb all the more excited. He turned in his key and unlocked the door.

"James! Philippa! Daddy's home and he has a surprise for you. Come out you guys!"

But out came no reply. The house was eerily silent. Maybe they must have gone to the beach with their grandpa outside the house to play. So he stepped into the balcony to check but there was no one on the beach.

He went into the kid's room but there was no sight of his children. That was odd Cobb thought to himself. He then knocked on Professor Miles' room and went inside only to see his body lying down on the floor. His face was sitting in a pool of blood from what appeared to be a head injury. Cobb screamed.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a kidnapping. Cobb was sure of that. Miles was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he tried to shove off the kidnappers but his strength was getting robbed by his old age and he became an unnecessary casualty.

Cobb was sitting in the ICU, his thumbs resting on his chin and his fingers on his eyes. He had been awake for 18 straight hours now waiting for the doctor to come out of the ICU.

He was hoping Miles must have seen something. Any information he could get about the kidnappers would help at this point. Police were done ransacking the apartment trying to search if anything else was missing from the house. But Cobb was sure this wasn't a robbery. They knew exactly what they wanted. But who could have done it?

Cobb had made many enemies in his past life. Extracted a lot of confidential information by hacking into people's dreams. Anyone could have done this. But why now? Everything was quiet since last 15 months. A regular ordinary life with no chaos. Why all of a sudden would someone kidnap his children? He had searched for any ransom notes that the kidnappers must have left for him but there wasn't any. He was carrying his cell phone at all times hoping it would ring soon with kidnappers on the other side making their demands. But none of it happened.

He felt helpless. He had no leads. No clues. Nowhere to go. He was missing his children. He wished Mal were with him. He felt alone.

After a couple more hours the doctors come out. Cobb jumped from his seat and approached them. One Asian doctor gestured Cobb to follow him and took him inside his office.

"Hello Mr. Cobb. I'm Dr. Lee," said the doctor while Cobb took seat. "I'm afraid I've some good news and bad. We were able to stop the bleeding. But he has lost a tremendous amount of blood shocking his body and sending him to deep coma."

Sleep deprived Cobb couldn't fully grasp what that meant. "So will be fine? I mean… when will he wake up?" asked Cobb.

"We cannot say. He can either wake up tomorrow or a year from now. All we can really do is wait."

Dr. Lee waited for a while but Cobb didn't reply back. Hesitating, he continued, "Next 24 hours are very crucial. In most cases the patient wakes up in this time period. Let's wait and see how Mr. Miles responds to medication." Again, resigning to the fact that silence is all he would get from Cobb, Dr. Lee continued, "I see you're very tired Mr. Cobb. Why don't you head home and rest and get something to eat? We have nurses here who will be looking after Mr. Miles. If anything happens, we would ring you asap."

Cobb got up from his seat, thanked the doctor, and went out of his office and into the restroom. The events that happened in last 24 hours just fully sunk in and he started crying and puking his guts out. And at the same time kicking the bathroom stall as hardly as he could. How could his life have taken such a drastic turn? All he wanted was some peace while he raised his children. And now what did he have? Mal was dead. His children missing. The closest thing he had to a father on the verge of dying. He was the poorest man in this world.

He got up and stared at himself into the mirror. He had to get his children back. He splashed some water on his face. And went out to see his father in law lying on the bed with respirator attached to him.

He had no leads except for one. Miles saw everything that happened. Miles was his key to finding his missing children. If he couldn't wake up and tell him, maybe Cobb can talk to him while Miles is dreaming.

And with that thought, he was off from the hospital heading towards his home, thinking about the briefcase he hadn't touched in past 15 months.


	3. Chapter 3

Cobb was back in the hospital room. But he hadn't come empty handed. He had a briefcase which had gathered dust after all those months of negligence. To him it felt like going back home. That briefcase was his life for over a decade. A part of him missed it a lot but the other part deemed it just like some nicotine addiction. Who had time to dream when your reality was better than anything you could ever imagine?

Cobb was now facing Miles. He had been waiting in the parking lot for visitor hours to end and for the night shift to begin. He couldn't afford having any nurses run into him while he was in deep sleep extracting information from Miles' mind. He sneaked in just after midnight, sporting an apron belonging to some Dr. Anderson and a pad in his hand. Everything seemed genuine when an impersonator carried a pad and a pen in their hand. Another benefit was you could easily avoid any eye contact by looking straight down your pad pretending to scribble something. And his plan worked. No one stopped him as he entered the hospital building, passed the reception, walked across the hallway, and entered Miles' room.

What would a guy in a coma dream of? He had always been curious. But now he was about to find out. He locked the hospital room door from the inside, unlocked his briefcase, took out his PASIV device, took one end of the wire and inserted it into Miles' vein and took the other end and inserted into his own, pressed the Infusion Trigger button activating all the IV lines at once sending Somnacin into their bloodstream, and in no time Cobb was fast asleep.

Cobb woke up in a world familiar. He was lying on a pavement, his face rubbing against the stones, shoulders twisted which was sure to hurt him later. Using his palms, he pushed himself and turned around facing the clear blue skies where a pack of birds was flying in the direction of the wind.

With sun on his eyes, he finally got up, and proceeded to assimilate his surrounding. He was in Miles' dream that he was sure of. But why did this world seem so famili…? Oh, wait a minute. He has lived here for 56 years with Mal. And this is where he had met the old Saito. He was in the Limbo.

How could that have happened? Miles was in a coma. It was not possible for him to be in a Limbo. It was practically impossible unless…

His head was spinning round and he started gasping for breath as the realization hit him. Miles wasn't just some unnecessary casualty of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was a part of an orchestrated plan. This was indeed a trap.

Someone came home and attacked Miles knowing he would be inside the house at that time. He was later sedated and forced into Limbo. But why? Maybe the kidnappers knew Cobb would try to hack into Miles dream and follow him to get answers about his missing children. But what would they want from Cobb? There was only way to find out.

Cobb unchained his jacket and tied it to his waist as it was getting very warm. Armed with more information than he had begun, he started to walk uphill hoping to find Miles.


End file.
